Mayan apocalypse or no Mayan apocalypse, the organizer of the Los Angeles Survival Community did not want LA Times reporter Gale Holland using his last name. That’s because although Tony never personally bought into all the December 21, 2012 guff, he firmly believes that a super-volcano or earthquake could one day trigger the mother of all local TV newscast storm watches. And when that happens, the naysayers will be hungry.

Holland paid a visit to Tony’s extremely well-stocked San Fernando Valley stucco HQ. There she found lots of mayonnaise and another critical condiment:

A row of barbecue sauce jars takes up one shelf. “We want to make sure food tastes good, with the different wildlife we might be eating,” Tony explained.

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As part of her quest to write about “the dark corners of our 24-hour metropolis,” LA Times reporter Gale Holland recently took in a Cinespia screening of 1974 classic Chinatown at Hollywood Forever cemetery. For anyone who has had the good fortune to attend LA’s original outdoor summer screening series, her piece perfectly captures the appeal.

Just as tourists flock to their favorite Hollywood Walk of Fame stars because they know the celebrity in question was at one point right there with them, the Cinespia setting has its own unique ability to frame the celluloid proceedings. From Holland’s piece:

In an especially macabre touch, John Huston, who played Noah Cross, Chinatown’s Mephistophelean mogul, was with us both in spirit and in body. The late actor and director is buried near the cemetery lake, John Wyatt, the founder of Cinespia, which puts on the cemetery film series, announced to appreciative murmurings from the crowd.

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The LA Times has won the prestigious Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for the paper’s 18-month, 6-part investigation into the $5.7 billion plan rebuild nine community colleges in Los Angeles. Michael Finnegan and Gale Holland were the lead reporters on the pieces, along with investigative reporter Paul Pringle, data specialists Doug Smith, Sandra Poindexter and Ben Welsh and graphics producer Raul Ranoa.

“This was an extraordinarily challenging reporting assignment that documented pretty much every abuse of the public trust that could be made by public officials when they have a lot of taxpayer money to spend,” said Bingham award judge Walter Robinson. “This was an important public works project whose biggest beneficiaries should have been working class community college students. Instead, the funds were used to award lucrative contracts to politically connected companies, with lax oversight. The result, richly documented and compellingly presented by the Times, was wasteful spending for inferior design, shoddy construction, excessive and unchecked billing practices, and a boondoggle for the relatives and friends of many of the decision-makers. This work by the Times is a stark reminder of the importance of the watchdog role the press plays when government spends scarce public funds.”

The Bingham award comes with a $20,000 prize. Not too shabby. Congrats to all involved!

Another day, another bit of fodder for the Lakers vs. Clippers debate. Actually, make that two bits.

Along with Friday’s news that the Clippers have signed free agent Kenyon Martin, LA Times reporter Gale Holland has distilled her own fan allegiances dilemma down to some unique pick ‘em methodology. And when it comes to tattoos, the comparative discussion inevitably must begin with Lakers forward Matt Barnes:

Barnes has his twin sons’ footprints on his neck and a heavenly mural of his mother, who died in 2007, on his torso. A pair of eyes on his back glares at viewers over “La Famiglia,”a tribute to the Italian half of his heritage. He plans to add the rest of his family tree to what empty space remains below. Barnes said the eyes are a reminder to “watch my back.”

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Although LA Times reporter Gale Holland failed to be convinced by Echo Park journalist, author and poet John Tottenham (pictured) that the word “awesome” should be banned from popular use, there’s no doubt her interview feature last week did an awesome job of shining a light on his efforts. The strand was picked up two days later by the Daily Mail and again this afternoon in the form of an interview on KPCC with Patt Morrison.

Expect to hear a lot more in the coming days about Tottenham’s Campaign to Stamp Out Awesome, or CPSOA for short. Ground zero for the effort, as Holland noted, is the LA bookstore Stories, where Tottenham also works.

The crusading poet faces an uphill battle, with his dreaded term equally embedded in the media lexicon. Among the outlets relying on the A-word this afternoon for article headlines are Jezebel.com, The A.V. Club and Patch.

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